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T O P I C R E V I E W

ozspace

I was just watching something about the JFK assassination and got me thinking about security decisions and risks associated with having the Apollo 11 crew driving around in open top cars.

These motorcades took place just over a year from the RFK and King assassinations and a little over five years after JFK was shot in his open top limo.

There must have been some very nervous (secret service?) agents during those parades. And they did them around the world! They would have been an 'attractive' target for a multitude of nutters, protestors, opponents of US policy, etc, etc.

Tykeanaut

I agree, they were very lucky and we are very fortunate that they were not targeted by some form of extremists.

Lasv3

Actual shooting happened in former Soviet Union in 1969. The target was the motorcade carrying the Soyuz 4 and 5 crews from one of the Moscow airports to Kremlin.

One policeman on the motorcycle was killed, some shots missed accompanying cosmonauts Leonov and Tereshkova by centimeters only. The motives of this one-man act are not clear, typically for those times in the USSR he was brought to the psychiatric hospital.

Who was the actual target is also not clear, there were rumors it was to be Leonid Brezhnev, who was in the motorcade as well, however in a different car. Nobody from the cosmonaut corps was wounded.

This was the last time the cosmonauts took part in a motorcade after finishing the space flight. The tradition which began with Yuri Gagarin was cancelled from security reasons.